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Trudy Rubin | A muddled Iraqi policy takes turn for better
By Trudy Rubin

Here's some good news about Iraq, coming to you from the nation's capital.

President Bush has just called for a faster transfer of political power from occupation officials to Iraqis - by July 1. This move is a sharp and welcome shift in administration policy, though the President doesn't call it that.

For those confused by the muddle of news about Iraq, here's what just happened. The President finally recognized that postwar-Iraq policy has reached a dangerous dead end and must be changed.

More and more Iraqis look at U.S. troops as occupiers. This grim fact has been hammered home by a just-leaked CIA report and recent polls inside Iraq, not to mention by leading Republican senators. It must be addressed, soon.

Iraqis blame Americans for lack of security, jobs and services, because it is Americans who are running their country. They have no Iraqi leadership to whom to address their problems, except a U.S.-appointed Governing Council that has little power and less credibility. So all the Iraqi anger and angst about their future is laid at the Americans' door.

This fuels a political climate in which Saddamist guerrillas can easily operate, even though most Iraqis don't want them to retake power. The longer Iraqis exist in their political limbo, the greater the danger that the Shiite Muslim majority - now instructed by its leaders not to attack U.S. soldiers - might turn against our troops.

So why wasn't political power transferred to Iraqis sooner? The answer can be summed up in two words: muddled planning.

Early on, the administration ruled out one useful model of transferring power: that used in Afghanistan. The United Nations convened an assembly of Afghan notables that endorsed Hamid Karzai as a transitional leader. But the White House, and many Iraqis, rejected a big U.N. role.

There was another viable option. Many experts on Iraq advised the Bush team to foster an Iraqi government-in-exile before a war started, which could have left seats open for Iraqis inside the country.

This idea was dropped, in part because quarreling Bush officials couldn't agree on policy, in part because Pentagon hawks bet that their favorite exile, Ahmed Chalabi, would soon take power.

Instead, the Pentagon confronted postwar chaos. The President sent occupation czar L. Paul Bremer to restore order, and Bremer decided things were too messy to hold any kind of elections for an interim government. Instead, he appointed a 25-person Governing Council, though many warned it would be seen as a U.S. puppet.

The council floundered, in part because of members' egos, in part because U.S. officials never gave it real power. Two months ago, there was a chance to resurrect it. France suggested that it be expanded and given sovereignty quickly under U.N. resolutions. The White House angrily rejected the idea.

But a weak council was unable to complete the one big job Bremer assigned it: decide on the process by which a constitution would be written. U.S. officials insisted that the constitution be adopted before elections or any transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government. This was meant to give Bremer more control over the Iraqi political process. Instead, that process hit a dead end.

Which brings us to the present. The President had to decide. Would the United States insist on keeping firm control of Iraq's political development? Or would the White House empower Iraqis, even though they may make decisions not to our liking?

The President picked Option Two. Iraq will have a new and sovereign transitional government in seven months, which will oversee the drafting of a constitution and elections by the end of 2005.

But the White House can't simply empower a discredited Governing Council. Unless the new body has legitimacy with Iraqis, it will also fail.

That means the council's membership must be expanded by direct and indirect elections. The process should draw in parts of society that have felt excluded in the post-Hussein era, such as Sunni tribal leaders and ex-military officers without blood on their hands.

The idea is to create a government that Iraqis can relate to, which can rally them against the guerrillas. (Hopefully, the urgency of the moment will also impel this new body to agree on one leader acceptable to all ethnic and religious groups.)

The new government must also have the power to establish military forces, bringing back some units of the old Iraqi army and setting up a national militia. Neither U.S. troops - nor the Iraqis they have trained - have been able to crush the insurgency, so the new Iraqi leadership must be given the chance to help.

And, finally, if this government is to be taken seriously, the administration must treat it as a partner when it comes to dispensing reconstruction funds and stationing U.S. troops.

Only if the United States is seen as working in tandem with Iraqis will the rebuilding of the country go forward. This is the only route out of the current Iraq trap.

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